OBJECTIVES OF TRAINING PROGRAMME

Increasing Overall Strength & Biomechanical Function

Full Body Muscle Growth (Hypertrophy)

Used for Lowering/Increasing/Maintaining Bodyweight (depends on combined diet plan)

WHO IS THIS PROGRAMME FOR?

Anyone can pick up this programme and benefit. Whether it’s ladies wishing to lose weight and tone up, beginner guys who want to develop a muscular physique, or for seasoned intermediate lifters who want to develop greater strength and more muscle mass. No age, capability or sex bias here – anyone can make progress with this well-rounded programme.

What’s critical to note is this – you can’t out-train a bad diet, and any physique goal must be paired with a diet plan/approach that helps supports either Muscle Growth OR Losing Fat (you have to choose, unfortunately). So, a female will not get bulky and muscly on this plan, unless they are making a concerted effort to match the programme with a very specific calorie-suplus diet plan. Likewise, a male will not lose 20 pounds of weight by following this programme if he is consuming more calories daily than he is burning through exercise and daily activity.

This Is Not A Magic Training Programme, But…

There is no such thing. Nor is it a programme that will deliver results for all eternity. You will need to mix it up, to create new stimuli, hit different muscle fibres, and practice other functional patterns. You will also benefit from undulating between this type of Strength-biased programme to perhaps a higher-rep Hypertrophy programme through the course of the year.

That said, this is a great place to start for the uninitiated, and is a great alternative to your current training for the more experienced trainers. It will garner results as long as you respect the intent, your diet and proper rest and recovery. You could, if you wish, just do this programme for the next year and continue to get results, assuming you are progressively overloading (see below).

THE APR-18 TRAINING PROGRAMME

DAY 5 – ARMS (optional)

IMPORT & Start Training Right Away!

If you don’t measure, you can’t manage. Plus, if you want to efficiently get started and blitz through these workouts, there is no better solution than to get this entire Training Block loaded up into HeavySet with just a couple clicks.

The best of both worlds – Expert Programming on the Best Weight Training App!

STEP 3: Open up the HeavySet app, where it will recognise the routine to import. Click Import and Choose.STEP 4:Train! Just click on the imported Folder, and select Day 1. Hope you’re in your gym gear already…

DESIGN PRINCIPLES & TRAINING POINTERS

For some people, they just want to know what to do and go do it. Others prefer to know why they are doing it. Then there are those who want to not just know why, but what other tricks can they implement. I’m the latter. 🙄 If you’re interested, read on. If not, just get on with the training!

The Primary Focus on any given day is One of the Compound Lifts – i.e the Days’ name (or exercise no. 4). This is where you will direct the majority of your mental and physical energy towards. Literally 80% plus of your energy here, with he remaining 20% for everything else.

The Non-Essential Mobility & Pre-Activation/Power Drills are designed to be completed in 5-15mins Max – You don’t need to do them per se, as they are not core to you burning calories or taxing your body. They are there to prime your body for the functional movements of the day. I personally always do them, but if you feel good to crack on as soon as you walk through the gym, then go for it. You can also do these in between your sets, should you feel a bit tight or are missing mind-muscle connection.

Warming Up Recommendations – I would always do 5-10mins of walking or light cycling to get the blood flowing and raise my body temperature before getting started. In addition, I recommend completing a few escalating Warm Up sets ahead of your big Compound Lift for the day (no. 4). It’s a bad idea to get straight into the maximum weight without a few lighter practice sets.

Progressive Overload is the Most Important Thing – The name of the game is to progress in some fashion every week. This creates a stress response that results in muscle damage followed by repair and body adaptation. So, always aim to improve each lift from week-to-week. Whether it’s more weight (with good form), another set or a couple more reps. Ultimately, you’re looking for more volume from week-to-week (Volume = Weight x Sets x Reps).

Increased Frequency & Full-Body – whilst the focus of any day is one of the primary Compound Lifts, this programme has been designed to ensure each muscle group is trained at least twice a week, and that there is a full-body nature to each of the days. It is proven that full-body training is superior to a true ‘bro’ body-part splits for growth and/or calorie burn, plus training a body part 2-3 times a week is better than only once a week.

2x Built-In Strength Weeks – On Week 4 and Week 8, do a Strength Week (A & B respectively). That involves 3x Squat, 3x Military Press / Bench Press and 1x Deadlift at your max weights for 4-6 Reps each, and to repeat that three times during the week with a days rest in between. The idea here is to use this week to get more practice on these foundational movements, and to remove all other noise. You want to go all out on this, and warm up as needed for each exercise. It’s incredibly demanding, but equally satisfying.

A Form of Daily Undulating Periodisation (DUP) – This is fancy speak for varying the rep ranges within a given workout. The Strength range is considered 3-6 Reps and Hypertrophy (muscle growth) is considered to be 8-12 Reps. By combining both modalities in a given session means you a sending a strong and varying signal to your body to adapt, and is considered optimal to stimulate muscle adaptation.

Optional Day 5 – Arms Isolation Day – Whilst you absolutely are getting a good volume in Day 1-4 for your biceps and triceps, some people like to get in more volume to stimulate more growth. If that sounds like a bit of you, follow the MAR-18 #HyperWorkouts – Day 5 ARMS day.

Red Text – Additions from April to May – I’ve incorporated a few minor tweaks to the APR-18 videos below, as highlighted in red. I will actually explain what they are (and why) in a follow up blog. Stay tuned. For now, just ignore the red text.

The Role of Cardio – For a deep dive into the pros and cons of cardio, I would recommend you list to this AdapNation Podcast – #4: Cardio Pro and Con Deep Dive. In summary, if you are not training to be an endurance athlete, and cardio is purely a means to burn calories for you, then for the most part you can switch cardio for resistance training. You will see there is a Finisher/Conditioning section per day – it includes just 5-10mins of moderate steady state cardio or HIIT cardio. The emphasis here is more about active recovery after weight training and getting some stress-relieving deep breaths in, versus the calorie burn. Don’t get me wrong, you will burn some calories (more so on the HIIT cardio), but if you fully committed to the resistance training this is just a little bonus. Moreover, too much cardio is counter productive – again, I’d recommend listening to the podcast for more detail.

Increase your NEAT for greater Calorie Burn & Weight Loss – instead of doing loads of cardio exercise, I would generally recommend you increase your NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). Basically, your moving around during the day. Go for walks, stand up regularly from your desk, do housework, yoga, get your steps in etc. You have the chance to burn significantly more calories through NEAT than pounding the streets for 30-60mins.

Expect a 300-600 Calorie Burn, plus More! – On average, I burn about 500-600 calories per training session. Smaller people or those with less muscle will burn less, naturally. Moreover, there then is the recovery energy needed to repair which is yet more calories burned. Even better still, the more lean mass on your frame, the higher your BMR is – as in, you burn more calories every day just by having more muscle. It’s a beautiful thing! I use an Apple Watch to estimate my calorie burn during exercise and during the day.

ENJOY! 💪🏻

Follow this vlog as it unfolds. Comment if you have questions or ideas.